Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/33

 Rh the rudimentary forms and primitive stages in the later organic development and progress. It is therefore possible to discover among highly refined individuals and nations remnants of a past, of which they are no longer conscious, or which they do not understand. Call it "atavism," call it "inheritance," call it by whatever name you like, it means always the same,—a relic of the past. Call it then "superstition," call it "custom" or "legend," it is always the same, the remnant of the past, with its good and its evil, with its beauty and repulsiveness. Individuals or whole layers of society represent often at the same time a higher and a lower, a more refined and a more primitive stage of development. We are thus made aware of the strange complexity of human life, of the many strands that are woven into one cord, and of the many cords that cross and recross in our composite being, and still above it all there is, as it were, one and the same spiritual power moulding it all together and setting in motion aims and aspirations which tend in the same direction and create harmony out of discordant elements. In spite of all divergence in detail the Folklore of one nation is essentially that of almost every other nation. The same superstitions, the same legends, the same habits and modes of life at a certain stage of development appertain to them all.

The narrower mythological theory had to give way under the effect of this remarkable similarity. A Greek or Asiatic tale could no longer be taken as representing Teutonic gods in disguise. Instead, an explanation was sought for this similarity in the universal unity of the human race. At a certain stage of development every nation, so it was argued, would evolve an absolutely identical practice or custom or legend, and therefore these tales and charms and customs would be of independent origin, springing up everywhere where men had reached exactly the same level of social and mental development. It would,